Reading between the lines
by ofcatsandwomen
Summary: Daredevil story. This short fic was originally a submission for the Theatrical Muse community on LiveJournal that ran a little long, so I'm cross-posting it here. In this first-person story, Matt Murdock remembers learning how to read print by touch.


I remember very clearly when the idea hit me that I might be able to teach myself to read again - for the third time. It was the summer when I was sixteen and I had tons of time to kill. School was out, dad had his own list of things to attend to, everything from boxing work-outs and sparring matches to the odd jobs he'd pick up from time to time. Meanwhile, I was bored beyond belief.

Growing up, most of my summers would be spent with my nose in a book, and now even that was a chore. It was almost a year and half after my accident and after sweating it out in Braille class for months, I had become pretty decent at it. I'm sure a heightened sense of touch helped, but it was still really hard to learn. At that stage, I probably should have been proud of the progress I'd made, but it bugged the hell out of me that reading had suddenly become something that had to be planned. I couldn't just run down to the library and pick out what I wanted, and even on the off chance that they actually had something I could read, it was probably something I knew inside and out already. The spontaneity was gone, and it bugged me so badly that people would have to read things to me all the time.

I did discover pretty quickly that my fingertips were sensitive enough to read the headlines in the paper. Nowadays, they're my least favorite part of any news story. Not only because I keep reading my name in all the wrong places, but because each letter has to be traced, which takes quite a bit of extra time. In the early days, however, that was the only print I could read at all.

But as much as necessity is supposedly the mother of all invention, boredom works pretty well too. Or maybe it was just sheer frustration that made me take a closer look at the paper Dad had brought home that particular June morning. I ran my hand over the page and noticed the lines there. It wasn't the first time, and I'm pretty sure most people can feel the lines of print in a newspaper if they try. But this time, I paid more attention to how uneven they were. Each line had a pattern. I couldn't make it out, but a crazy idea had taken hold. Maybe I could teach myself to make sense of it. I quickly became so excited at the thought of it, I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest.

I immediately came up with a plan. Later that day, I took the bus to the library that was my regular "supplier," and asked to be shown the large print section. Ms. Tanner, the librarian who usually made it her business to at least try and cater to my every need probably thought I was getting my sight back or something, because she was almost as excited as I was. She seemed a little baffled, however, when I told her that I wanted to look around on my own. She had every right, I still can't find my way around a book case that's not my own in under half an hour, but I didn't want any eyewitnesses for this experiment. Besides, I knew I would have to try to find a book with a good layer of print, and who knew how long that would take.

When she was gone, I grabbed the first book my hand landed on, and opened it. I was so nervous my hands were trembling and my mouth was dry. It wasn't as if I had woken up that morning with the expectation of reclaiming the lost world of print, but after allowing myself to hope, I would have been heartbroken if it hadn't worked. And it didn't. Not really. But my hopes weren't completely smashed. I just had to come up with more realistic goals for myself.

For some reason, I had thought that if the letters were big enough and the layer of ink was high enough, I'd be able to somehow trace each letter, just like I had done with the headlines. That wasn't going to work, the letters were still too small. But I also realized that what I wanted wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. It just wasn't going to be as easy as flicking a switch. I was going to have to learn it the hard way. One word at a time.

Being reasonably creative, I decided to go back to the counter to ask to get me a large print copy of a book I already had in Braille at home. If I was going to break the code, I was going to need a Rosetta Stone. Clearly puzzled, she quickly obliged me, and I'm guessing she probably had to bite her tongue not to ask me what I was up to. On the bus on the way home, I clutched my newly acquired copy of To Kill a Mockingbird as it it were a stone tablet handed down from God. I had already spent many late nights honing my senses under Stick's guidance and had almost come to believe in miracles. With everything I could do, this particular trick shouldn't be impossible. I had beaten impossible odds before.

_"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."_ That is the first sentence of To Kill a Mockingbird, and I know it by heart. I don't think I'll ever forget it. I read it in Braille a couple of times, to have it memorized, and then set out to match the meaning of those words to what I could feel on the printed page, trying to make sense of the shape. You see, an 'a' doesn't feel like you think it should. All those round, squiggly lines were never meant to be read by touch, so knowing what an 'a' looks like isn't enough. You have to learn what it feels like. An 'a' is sort of oval, but bottom-heavy. Just like a 'p' is top-heavy and creates a dip in the line.

The key to figuring all of this was to learn to group the letters by various properties. Did it rise above the mid-line or dip below it? Was it round or thin? Did it open up at the top or on the bottom? The common words, I started memorizing as whole shapes. The less common ones I had to run through this engine in my head that seemed to run on probability and a memory of recurring patterns.

To this day, this trick is performed the same way. After that first long summer surrounded by books I had already read, I had it down. I had conquered the written word once again. In most ways, I had achieved what I wanted, but the experienced was lined with disappointment as well. Because, to tell you the truth, it's still not particularly easy to do. It never became effortless the way it was when I could read it by sight. It's quite the skill to have though, I must admit. Especially since it shouldn't be possible at all.

If my dad ever wondered what I was doing all day, he didn't ask. I guess he could probably tell that I had a secret project of some kind, and at sixteen I was probably deemed old enough to have a few secrets. Then again, he never figured out my much bigger secret either. But I don't think he would have minded my sneaking a peek of the sports section, though that was always the part he never minded reading out loud.


End file.
